The tale of two houses
EDIT: On reflection this is long and rather boring but I have nothing else to add to this week's question and haven't posted for a while. Read only if bored at work :p

As I have mentioned before (in fact most of my posts start with it nowadays, mainly because it's taking over my life) I started a PhD at Cambridge in October. As I'm sure many of you know, Cambridge university is a bit of a weird entity (understatement of the year!) and will try and house all of its students, depending on the college you end up in. And when I say house, I mean baby and cocoon and suffocate and remove all traces of adulthood just like the mothers most of us have left behind. For goodness' sake, they change your bedsheets, clean your room and kick you out of bed if you sleep in too long and this is in the *graduate* accomodation. *Shudders* Anyway, understandably, I decided that at 22 years of age I am perfectly capable of changing my own sheets and making it into the lab on time and for that reason I turned down the offer of graduate accomodation and decided to find a random house of preferably other grads or young professionals to live with.

And so began the grand househunt, at the start of August. Yes, August! Remember this, it's important. I decided to go the rather risky route of posting my details on Gumtree and seeing what happened. I had a couple of miss-spelled and one downright unhelpful reply, and then I found my the girl who is now my housemate. She sounded very much on the same wavelength as me and ideal to live with but there was one catch - she also hadn't found a house yet. So we set out together to try and find somewhere either with 2 bedrooms or 2 bedrooms free in a larger house. To cut a long story short, we finally found a large 2 bedroom house in Trumpington (just outside Cambridge for those not in the locality) which wasn't furnished and not the best condition but certainly liveable in and worth it for the extra space (we saw some TINY 2 bed flats on our hunt). We rushed off to the letting agents (rhymes with BRussels) and filled in all their forms, paid all their fees. This was the start of August. By the end of August we'd paid the holding fee with a moving date at the start of October.

Then disaster struck. On 19th September, only 11 days before my course was due to start on October 1st, the letting agents rang to say that the current tenants of the house we were supposed to be moving into had decided they weren't going to move out after all. What the fucking hell we'd paid them an £80 "legal fee" to hold the house for us had been spent on only the good lord himself knows as it certainly wasn't on issuing them with their 28 days notice 28 days before the tenancy was supposed to end. I'd also paid another £300 in deposit and various other fees, a hell of a lot of money when you're between your undergrad degree and PhD and the only job I'd managed to get over the summer was 8 hours a week.

One of the most stressful weeks of my life followed. I couldn't get hold of my housemate for a few days as for some reason her phone was off and I was forced to view a totally unsuitable property with the same agents in a hurry on my own as I couldn't get hold of her to discuss plan B and besides, I needed somewhere to live, FAST. Finally she picked up my frantic emails and it turned out she was in Italy for she sister's wedding which is why her phone was off. In a moment of genius she phoned the university accomodation office who were AMAZING and found us a 2 bedroom flat only 15 minutes away from the centre of Cambridge to view and let us know about it the day before it was advertised so we could get in first. My housemate was still abroad so I had view it on my own again, and luckily, we got it.

So, cunty tenants of the house we were supposed to be moving into who decided it would be a good idea to decide not to move less than 2 weeks before the end of your tenancy when you *knew* the letting agents would have someone lined up to move in and putting me through a week of not eating and not sleeping because of the worry when I should have been packing and sorting out getting our internet connected and looking forward to moving out of mum and dad's again, I laugh. I laugh when I'm in my £900 king size bed (my boyfriend looked it up) and remember that you were sleeping on airbeds because you were too stingy to buy furniture. I laugh when I'm having a bath in my perfectly white, sparkling bath in my beautiful pristine bathroom, because I remember the broken tiles and damaged bath enamel in your house. I laugh in my (admittedly orange, but you can't have it all) completely stocked with every appliance you could ever wish for kitchen and remember your dirty worksurfaces and peeling linoleum. I laugh when I skip up the road and am in the centre of Cambridge in a twinkling and remember that you have a long bus ride or long cycle, either way. I laugh when our fantastic landlady goes out of her way to help us out and fix even the tiniest problems with the flat immediately and remember that you have to deal with a letting agent. I laugh, and it feels good.

And "BRussels", I laugh at you. I laugh because you had to refund us every penny of your extortionate charges without fuss because you weren't competent enough to draft one standard document and post it on time. I laugh becaue I didn't pay a penny in fees to rent this flat. I laugh because I'm telling all my friends how shit you are and not to go with you and you know *just* how many students there are in Cambridge and quite how fast word of mouth spreads.

Laughs? Lots. I definitely got the win this time!
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Wed 9 Feb 2011, 21:27, 7 replies)

....In a moment of genius she phoned the university accomodation office...
made me snigger.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Wed 9 Feb 2011, 23:28, closed)

Holy fuck my eyes are bleeding help me
The fucking shittiest "climax" I'd ever read.
(lemonadegame, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 2:38, closed)

Now there's a company that needs to go out of business quickly.
Nearly everyone unfortunate enough to have dealt with Russells - the astroturfing cunts that they are - knows that they're almost universally shit. Well done on being screwed a little less by them than most, though.
(The Cunt of Monte Cristo, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 9:18, closed)

Lesson learned
If you're just looking for digs, never ever go through an agent. They'll fuck your pockets dry before you've taken your first shit.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 9:43, closed)

Yes
And forget who you are the moment you step out of the door.

"My roof is leaking"
-"So?"
"You are the letting agents"
-"So? Speak to your landlord"
"Why did we pay you a 'management fee'?"
-"Blaa blaa weasly lies"

I have used Gumtree for Cambridge and have so far been ok. Plus, Gumtree is brilliant for playing with the scambaiters. £300p/m for a 2 bed flat in Chesterton? My arse!
( The_Commander_of_Skips wears his sunglasses at night, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 9:49, closed)

So much writing
for such a small victory.

Glad you have a nice place though!
(superfly78, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 9:48, closed)

All I got from this was:
I go to Cambridge which makes me well clever but despite this fact paid nearly £400 to a letting agent before I'd even signed a tenancy agreement. Then my friend had the genius plan of using the entity set up to help students find flats, and they FOUND US A FLAT. Did I mention I go to Cambridge?


Also I go to Cambridge, for a PhD.

EDIT: on reflection you could just have cut it down to about 4 lines, instead of telling QOTW "I've not read my prose on B3ta in a bit so here's a fuckton of it to make me feel better"
(ElectricSexPants would like to be the Sultan of something, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 11:05, closed)

Wow your cleaners are dedicated
our scouts would never change sheets
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 11:13, closed)